The Crusades

<blockquote><p>From a renowned historian who writes with "maximum vividness" (<em>The New Yorker</em>) comes the most authoritative, readable single-volume history of the brutal struggle for the Holy Land.</p></blockquote><p>Nine hundred years ago, a vast Christian army, summoned to holy war by the Pope, rampaged through the Muslim world of the eastern Mediterranean, seizing possession of Jerusalem, a city revered by both faiths. Over the two hundred years that followed, Islam and Christianity&#8212;both firm in the belief that they were at God's work&#8212;fought for dominion of the Holy Land, clashing in a succession of chillingly brutal wars: the Crusades.</p><p>For the first time, this b